Posted
by
timothy
on Friday July 08, 2005 @01:50PM
from the out-the-door dept.

Stanislav Blingstein writes "Cyberpunk just got a whole lot darker. The Escapist, by James Morris, takes the genre into a gloomy alley and gives it a good kicking. The main character, Bentley Dean, is more than just an anti-hero: he seems to enjoy being bad. His cast of accomplices aren't much better, either, and some are far worse. Most are pretty cartoon-like, too. But you still can't help liking Bentley Dean. He brings a certain charm to being a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak." Read on for Blingstein's review.

The Escapist

author

James Morris

pages

167

publisher

Ad Libbed Ltd

rating

8

reviewer

Stanislav Blingstein

ISBN

1905290055

summary

Cyberpunk with a darkly satirical edge

The Escapist is set in an indeterminate future. Space travel seems to exist, but most of the action takes place on Earth. And there's plenty of action, too. From page one, the book races along with scarcely a pause for breath, and by the time you've finished you've been around the world, met numerous bizarre competing factions, and uncovered the plot behind the mysterious Mind Invasions. The storyline takes in locations as far afield as Egypt, Malaysia, Israel, Las Vegas, New York, and London. It almost seems like a travelogue of all the places the author has been in his life, except seen through a warped lens of cyberpunk fiction.

In fact, the story seems almost arbitrary, like it was written as a stream of consciousness. Think Beat Generation, but penned by a Jack Kerouac who's fascinated by computers rather than drugs, jazz and driving. Bentley Dean is carried along by the increasingly frantic stream of events, each one hitting him sideways. All is revealed at the end, but you still get the feeling that many situations occur with no rhyme or reason -- a bit like real life, only with more explosions.

The ideas about future technology in The Escapist can vary from insightful to mundane. The central theme of cryogenic sabbaticals is rather amusing, though. These could be described as "holidays on ice." And though this is clearly a cyberpunk novel, not much of it actually takes place in cyberspace --that's more of a recurring theme in the background. Most of the action occurs in the flesh. This is maybe a good thing, as the novel's description of using virtual reality to explore the human mind is a bit 20th century, perhaps as a deliberate lampoon of how dated films like The Lawnmower Man seem today.

But that doesn't really matter. Most of the time, this is a very funny book. It's full of one-liners which take the present day and twist it to its logical extremes, so you can see just how ridiculous it is. The moon, with its low gravity, becomes a refuge for the overweight. Pandas are saved from extinction by being genetically re-engineered to like eating hamburgers. A strip club is named after Pee-Wee Herman. Bentley buys a fashionable suit made of paper, only to find it too noisy for creeping around at night.

Some of these ideas will have you laughing out loud, although a few of the gags are very much for the geeks in the audience, like the Windows Bar and Grill which takes three attempts to get your order right. There are also plenty of embedded cultural references for film buffs to spot, including HAL, Yoda and even James Bond quotations. You cant help feeling at times that the plot is just there to serve the jokes.

But the book also has a serious side. There's a deeper theme about artificial intelligence, and each chapter is headed by a quasi-philosophical statement. Some of these will really get you thinking, and some are deliberately silly, just to catch you out. If you're interested in the whole question of whether or not computers could ever think like us, and what that would mean, theres food for thought here, hidden among the humour. The Escapist is a book which just doesn't stop hitting you with idea after idea, some of them serious and some intended entirely for darkly comic relief.

The Escapist's main fault is just this -- it tries to do too much in too few pages. It's so fast that at times you have trouble keeping up, and sometimes you wish the characters would just slow down and admire the scenery. And if you need a truly sympathetic character to relate to in your novels, you might find Bentley Dean is just too mean. He's also too much like a cross between James Bond and Kevin Mitnick. But if you have a perverse streak, and a penchant for satire, you'll like The Escapist. You may even wish it was a bit longer.

As well as being available in printed form, The Escapist can also be bought as a PDF direct from the website. And since the novel is published under a Creative Commons license, once you've got hold of one of these PDFs, you can share it around and print it out as much as you like. The cover art is well worth seeing on a real book, though -- it has an evocative mystery all of its own.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make me not want to get it, either. I feel completely unmotivated in either direction, and much like I've just injected my head with a bunch of trivia I'll probably never use about a book I may or may not ever read.

Could someone actually provide some good novels that take place in Cyberspace, or are closely involved?Books such as SnowCrash and Neuromancer were great but other 'cyberpunk' books i read have very little to do with cyberspace and more to do with the dystopian future. Yes yes i know thats the cyberpunk theme, but really i want books that involve hacking etc that wont cost 80 bucks.

Could someone actually provide some good novels that take place in Cyberspace, or are closely involved?
Books such as SnowCrash and Neuromancer were great but other 'cyberpunk' books i read have very little to do with cyberspace and more to do with the dystopian future. Yes yes i know thats the cyberpunk theme, but really i want books that involve hacking etc that wont cost 80 bucks.

Count Zero by Gibson
Mindplayers by Cadigan (sort of)
Islands in the Net by Sterling
Holy Fire by Sterling
Burning Chrome (short story) by Gibson
Cyberpunk (short story) by Bruce Bethke
City Come A Walkin' by John Shirley (if by "cyberspace" you mean a proto-network comprised of anthropomorphised city-AIs, and if by "hacking" you mean said city-AIs messing around with the real world via this network)
Eclipse trilogy by John Shirley (a lot of dystopian, but a fair amount of "hacking" and man-machine interfaces, which might interest you)

For Cadigan, if you can find them, I rather enjoyed Fools as well as Synners. Her short story collection, Patterns, has some gems, and Tea From an Empty Cup and Dervish is Digital are also worth reading, although I do enjoy her earlier work more.

FWIW, she did the novelization of the Lost In Space movie as well, but I've not read it.

I really like this book, but since it was written in the 70's, the "hacking" may not be what you expect. However, this brings up a problem. Because these books have to envision a "cyberspace" of the future, it often ends up being more like the "holodeck" in Star Trek. And realistic "hacking" is really boring to read, even when writer knows anything about the subject. Have you tried the wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider [wikipedia.org]

The Bit Stream Syndrome by LasiterCrash Park by LasiterElectrons Never Sleep and Neither Do I by BuldonsolControl Protocol by CharlesSunspot Redux: 2098 by CharlesThe Coretropic Analysis Trilogy by Nevels (book 1 is slow, book 3 is worth it)Crime is not Crime in Cyberspace by TerryLove is still Love in Cyberspace by TerryDeath Undone by Terry (a fave of mine)Reduction Chronicles by Mulstoy

Apparently computers are not a prerequisite so much as technology. In that case the Phillip K Dick I've read would fit (though it borders on regular Sci Fi). His work is stupendous in its abilities to create magnificent twists of philosophical (and not just technological) profundity.

"Postcyberpunk" (if you believe in such a sub-genre) focuses on family units rather than anti-heroes. Islands in the Net is an example of a future that's not dystopic, and the Eclipse trilogy (if you take into account the fact that, by the end of the trilogy, the protagonists have overthrown the facists).

But generally, you're right. If a novel takes a positive approach to technology, chances are it's run-of-the-mill sf rather than CP.

Tad needs to fire his editor. His novels tend to ramble on and on pointlessly. He has some really good ideas that translate fairly well on book form (although at times it feels like reading a summer action movie), but his books tend to bog down rather badly in the middle.

Daniel Keys Moran has a great series, if you can dig it up. Emerald Eyes is the first, and has some stuff in cyberspace but not much. The Long Run is the second, and is thoroughly a cyberpunk novel. The Last Dancer is the third, and has a mix of cyberpunk and traditional sci-fi, if you can call anything Moran does "traditional."

Here's a great sample short story [kithrup.com] to get an idea of how he writes. Here [kithrup.com]'s a bunch of links to other free-to-read fiction of his.

They arrested the code dudes in an operation sweeping the entire city. My Pocket Assistant beeped impetuously as Rodriguez dialled the tip-off pager number. Something heavy was going down. Nobody used those digits unless it was a dire emergency. I flipped the cover off the Phoenix handheld and studied the holographic touch screen. The message flashed across in chiselled 3D text:

Reading that doesn't fill me with any desire to read farther. I prefer my fiction to be about the people and the plot, not the gadgets and the buzzwords.

> > They arrested the code dudes in an operation sweeping the entire city. My Pocket Assistant beeped impetuously as Rodriguez dialled the tip-off pager number. Something heavy was going down. Nobody used those digits unless it was a dire emergency. I flipped the cover off the Phoenix handheld and studied the holographic touch screen. The message flashed across in chiselled 3D text:> >
Reading that doesn't fill me with any desire to read farther. I prefer my fiction to be about the people and th

My kids picked up a Johnny Mnemonic audio book at a garage sale. It was an audio recording of a novelization of the screenplay, not written by Gibson. I kinda remembered liking the movie version with Keanu Reaves, so I listened to it on my commute for two... agonizing... days.

What you quoted could have been an excerpt from that, except for the first-person narrative and no reference to anything Japanese.

Right. The audio book was a "novelization" of the screenplay. That means they added a bunch of descriptive narration to the screenplay that the movie didn't need, because it had pictures.

I think it's still in the car... ah, yes.

"Johnny Mnemonic... A Novel by Terry Bisson... Based on the Short Story and SCREENPLAY by WILLIAM GIBSON... Now A Major Motion Picture..." (emphasis in the original, but) my text rendering doesn't do the cover justice. It's really bad. So was t

I don't think it's the buzz words so much as the writing. A good edit would have helped that paragraph.

In the first sentence, the narrator knows what is "going down," but in the third he does not. The second sentence is a mess. Is Rodriguez right there in the room dialing up the narrator's pager? And by the fourth sentence, Rodriguez has been demoted from token minority programmer to "nobody." Then in the fifth sentence, "Pocket Assistant" confusingly turns into "Phoenix handheld." Presumably, back in sentence two, he meant "pocket assistant" and not "Pocket Assistant."

What drives me nuts about most sci fi, and one of the big reasons I stopped reading sci fi for a long time, is how they absolutely insist on putting little "look, it's future technology, see" signifiers on absolutely everything. Characters in sci fi novels never just take a piece of toast out of the toaster which, the writing somehow casually reveals, is for some dumb reason based on nanotechnology. No, they take a piece of toast out of the NanoToast.

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has s

Hmm... that part always seemed like it was just making fun of film noir style. I mean this is a pizza delivery boy we're talking about. Yes, one that is killed if the pizza takes more than 30 minutes, but a pizza boy nonetheless.

As far as I'm concerned, "The message flashed across in chiselled 3D text" was bad enough on its own.

Cheesey, derivative sci-fi always has to have cheesey, derivative sci-fi stylings. I mean, aren't people going to want to read using a "normal" typeface in the future? Anyone with half a brain will have figured out that stylised typefaces like that will be a PITA to use for any length of time. Heck, I don't even like reading novels that use s

Not necessarily, but that's not the point. It's not the exact content of the first paragraph, it's the way it's written. It seems that the author isn't very good. What I mean is, he doesn't know how to describe things. Therefore he just throws adjectives and names all over the place without any thought as to the result.

You can describe things, and you can mention doing things, but when you combine them the result is often a disaster. No offence to the author, but it's like the sort of think you get from a 10 year old who's learning to write stories, and has just been taught about adjectives:

"Bob got up from the big black chair. He walked across the blue carpet and opened the small wooden door with the shiny brass handle. He walked into the wide long dark corridor with a wooden floor..."

Also the use of 'impetuously' is completely incongruent. The style of the writing seems to be a very casual one, i.e. the narrator isn't exactly eloquent, he uses a lot of slang, probably with some sort of strong accent. But then someone like that wouldn't say 'impetuously'. When you're writing from the perspective of the narrator, you have to keep the style of writing congruent with the character. Otherwise someone reading it will feel that something isn't right, even if they don't know what it is. Like a bacon sandwich with coffee on it.

I'm afraid that the reason this author is effectively giving the book away is that it's no good. You can't judge a book by its cover, but you if the writing in the first paragraph is of a schoolboy level, the rest probably isn't going to be any better.

"Impetuously [reference.com]" is not really a supportable adverb, here, regardless of characterization. Would a telephone in this world ring recklessly? Would a siren have a cavalier wail?

Another thing that bugged me was the way the narration insisted on explaining the "pocket assistant" so much -- just refer to "my Phoenix hand-held" as though it's really something the character would be carrying around as a matter of course. Context makes it clear that it's a

No, "anti-hero" is a literary term that appeared around the turn of the last century. It means a protagonist who is an average person, rather than someone upstanding or fantastic. Traditionally, dating back to Greek plays, the main protagonist of a story was a hero. He or she was someone of nearly inhuman virtue and often important as well. The only variation on this was the "tragic hero" who was exactly like a hero but with one flaw that caused them to have a massive fall from grace.
The problem is mo

Wikipedia is incorrect. One of the few problems I have with Wikipedia is when bad information is wide-spread enough, there's a good chance that it'll wind up in there as if it were factual. There is a popular misconception about what "anti-hero" means, because most people didn't learn it in an academic institution. As such, instead of learning the actual English meaning they just learn what a lot of people think it means. Just because a bastardization of a word is popular doesn't make it right.

Oh, you mean the English-speaking subculture. That reminds me - I must finish that paper I've been writing on how everyone has been using 'blue' to refer to the wrong color. The fact that everyone says the sky is blue obviously doesn't make it so unless an academic says so.

Antihero: A protagonist who lacks one or more of the conventional qualities attributed to a hero. Instead of being dignified, brave, idealistic, or purposeful, the antihero may be cowardly, self-interested, alienated, or weak. Although instances of the antihero are sprinkled throughout literature since ancient times -- for instance, Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605) and Byron's Don Juan (1819-24) -- the antihero in the current sense is essentially a twentieth-century character. Their antiheroism tends to reflec

The meaning of a word is determined by the people who use it, not a self-selected group of so-called experts. I'm fairly certain that if you asked a cross-section of the public what an "anti-hero" is, at least 90% would reply Wikipedia-style and not stuffy-anal-retentive-academic-style.

When it comes to language democracy really does rule the roost, regardless of what a few of the self-important types would like to think.

So by your logic, the definition of extraordinary is something that is "incredibly ordinary," huh? Hey, here's a hint, why don't you try doing some research before you open your shithole mouth. I dunno, maybe try seeing how some literary analysis sites define antihero before running with your (wrong) assumption. There's a good chance that they might (just maybe) have more of a clue than you do...

I'd have to disagree with you. Antihero is not defined as an "average person." There are many antiheros in literature who would be anything but average. The central notion of the antihero is the lack of some heroic qualities, which is not the same as saying they are average.

I referenced a literature book over here [slashdot.org] because you wanted something more academical than Wikipedia. People could rightly apply "antihero" to some renditions of Batman, and that character is anything but average.

An example: "The cover art is well worth seeing on a real book, though -- it has an evocative mystery all of its own."

Care to describe that "evocative mystery" for us? I'm surprised that a review would mention something like that instead of just describing it. IMHO, this "review" reads more like a sales pitch, dancing around everything but saying nothing.

It's an "evocative mystery" because, according to the author interview [pabd.com], it was the author's wife that did the cover.

This "review" looks more and more like astroturfing. The "novel" is self-published with a cover done by the author's wife; given the high rating this "novel" received, it is likely the review was written by either the Author or a friend.

"But you still can't help liking Bentley Dean. He brings a certain charm to being a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak."

Yeah, there's nothing more charming than "being a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak." Seriously, it's a real hit with the ladies and it's great for parties. I would know...I mean I wouldn't know. Shoot! They're on to me!

My take on the book given the review is that the book was a nice attempt that the author didn't manage to pull off. Heck, even the attempts at humor that the author of the review cited sounded pretty darn lame.

So, I agree: Sounds like a big "skip" to me. Which is too bad -- I've been looking for some new SciFi to read ever since I finished reading through the various works of Vernor Vinge earlier this year.

I read the Dan Simmons "Hyperion" series and found it extremely unsatisfying (a strong start followed by weaker and weaker storytelling). Read "Forge of God" by Greg Bear and it was decent, although the sequel was, in my opinion, lousy. I read "Forever War" by Joe Haldeman and found it entertaining enough, although "Forever Peace" was a struggle to even finish. Also read through a couple of other one-hit-wonder authors whose second and third books were rather Wachowski Brothers, if you catch my meaning.

I don't really know where to go from here. Once you polish off the classics and the hits, you're left with a couple of shelfs of books at Barnes and Noble that all have interesting looking covers and rave reviews on the back, but probably aren't all that good...

I'll second that recommendation. If you're looking for a seminal "future noir" detective/cyberpunk novel, look no further than 'Altered Carbon' by Richard Morgan. It's about an ex-military private detective who is released from prison and hired by a rich man to find out who killed him and why. (A key feature of the series is that in this future, most people have their consciousness backed up to an implanted storage device, and it can be restored into any other body.)

'Broken Angels', the sequel, borrows the main character from Altered Carbon, but little else. It's primarily a future war novel where the main character and his small group face off against military and corporate interests during a planetary civil war. Both novels contain plenty of violent and sexual content.

There's a third book in the series called 'Woken Furies', just recently released.

I'll second The Skinner and the Revelation Space series (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap - there's another book, Chasm City, set in the same universe and timeline, but not part of that triology, which is also well worth a read). I've not read the other books, although I've read some Iain M. Banks and some Jon Courtenay Grimwood, which were also well worth a read.

FWIW I just finished the trilogy of John C. Wright's. Book one is called "The Golden Age". The first 50 pages can be a bit of a slog, but part of that's because they toss all these ideas out there, but without the huge explanations of what everything is, so you can get a bit lost. However, it all gels, all makes sense, and winds up as one hell of a story.

I've heard good things about Charles Stross as well - that's next on my list to pick up. Some other good authors I've found in the past couple years a

ESC? Ha! vi Masters don't waste time with ESC! They use the more optimal CTRL+[ that can be entered from the home keys on both a Sun and PC QWERTY keyboard. Sure it is even more esoteric, but why else would you be using vi?;)

I have not RTFB, but in true Slashdot fashion that will not keep me from presenting my opinions. Here are some random notes I took while not reading TFB.

First, the protaginists name, Bentley Dean, leads me to believe that a prequal will at some point be writeen about this man's previous career in the adult film industry.

Two, this book is trying to be a movie. Morris cunningly creates a universe where space travel seems to exist, but most of the action takes place on Earth so he can have a future, cyber-punk, technothriller action movie without the big budget requirements that a space travel flick would demand.

Three, one area I wish the book would have explored more was Bentley Dean's (shudder) emotional side; what is driving this wonderful and delightfully animated character? Clearly he's been hurt in the adult film industry... used by so many men... that you'd think this subject matter would lay an interesting foundation and rationale for Dean's cold-blooded killing streak. I can understand how the author wouldn't want to cover some of the details of Dean's exploitation as they may be too close to some of his own experiences in the underground Mexican adult film industry.

One thing is clear, without RTFB I was able to see just how ridiculous it is and provide insightful karma-building comments to the rest of the community. I was however thrilled to read that

The Escapist can also be bought as a PDF direct from the website. And since the novel is published under a Creative Commons license, once you've got hold of one of these PDFs, you can share it around and print it out as much as you like.

The book was called "Gone To Be Snakes Now" and I wish I still had a copy or could find a copy.

It was utterly incomprehensible to my then young mind. Either the writing was an act of wanton arboricide or it was as brilliant as 'The Iluminatus Trilogy" which I encountered later in my lfe and was able to appreciate.

"a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak" - killed the whole idea of reading this book. It gave me the same feeling as when I heard Vin Deisel was going to be in a kids movie, it's just too far of a stretch for my imagination to take.

The best cyberpunk novel I have found is reality. My grandson tipped me off to the hellholes that are the GameFAQs.com discussion forums, so I started reading the postings there out of curiosity. Indeed, what I found there startled me.

The moderators were your average schoolyard bullies. The thugs who attack innocent people in the night. I'm thinking more along the lines of Clockwork Orange here. Not just physical attacks, but they partake in the worst sort of psychological perversions.

They are the stereotypical "cyberpunks": nerdy teens with the mentality of 12 year olds who are physically unable to be anything of importance in the non-Internet world, thus they become the punks of the Internet. And their presence really destroys the quality of the forums. But while the quality of the forums as a place for discussion is shitshot, the entertainment value rises immensely.

The best part is that I don't have to chip out a pence to read such novelry. The GameFAQs forums take the best of cyberpunk novels and combine them with an ever-changing reality.

The storyline takes in locations as far afield as Egypt, Malaysia, Israel, Las Vegas, New York, and London. It almost seems like a travelogue of all the places the author has been in his life, except seen through a warped lens of cyberpunk fiction.

I am left with the distinct impression that there cannot be much depth (or character development) in the 167 pages that comprise this book. By the time you load it "full of one-liners" and punny place names all you probably have left is room for a dash of seriousness.

The story seems almost arbitrary...tries to do too much in too few pages

Virtual reality...artificial intelligence...technology ranging from insightful to mundane. And more explosions. Yea. Is the author hoping for a movie-rights deal?

One, your review does not encourage me to run out and grab this book. Two, why did you give this an 8?

There are plenty of books out there that are both short and good but, based upon your review, it seems that the author should have spent more time exploring one theme in a modicum of detail than attempt to pass off a screen-play treatment as a novel.

As well as being available in printed form, The Escapist can also be bought as a PDF direct from the website. And since the novel is published under a Creative Commons license, once you've got hold of one of these PDFs, you can share it around and print it out as much as you like.

This smacks of self- or vanity-publishing particularly when combined with the fact that "Ad Libbed, Ltd.", the listed publisher, has no web-presence that I could easily find. Sometimes self-publishing is the right way to go - most of the time it means you couldn't get anyone else to pick up your stuff. Based upon your review, it seems the reader would have been better served had the author turned his novella into a serial short and got it published in a sci-fi magazine or something.

This book, The Escapist was self-published here [pabd.com]. This site actually has an interview w/ the author (or hack whichever you prefer). Here are a few choice tidbits from the interview. My comments are added in italics

What is the Escapist about?It's an epic, picaresque tale, which I've somehow managed to squeeze into 168 pages. which the author later revealed took him 13 years to write... roughly 13 pages per year on the average.

Why did you decide to self publish your book?I had tried sending The Escapist to a few agents. I'm sure if I'd carpet bombed all the relevant agencies I would eventually have found representation and some form of publishing deal. Sure you would have... well considering what they publish... you acutally might have But it could have taken ages, and I was confident my book was good enough for prime time. By prime time... you mean posting your own review on/.?

You've taken a Creative Commons license. Why did you do that?...send me some money...viral marketing...

How are you going to market your book?...I've had one review on a popular computing news website as well so far. Oh really, and where would you find editors of a popular computing news website lazy enough to publish said review... oh... sorry, silly question

Well, I hope someone likes it. Read the PDF, burn a copy... to a CD or otherwise... and send this guy some money, but not enough to make him think about writing a follow up.

... looks like I forgot to escape my italics. Idiot. Here' the corrected version (not that it really matters).---What is the Escapist about?which the author later revealed took him 13 years to write... roughly 13 pages per year on the average.

Why did you decide to self publish your book?I had tried sending The Escapist to a few agents. I'm sure if I'd carpet bombed all the relevant agencies I would eventually have found representation and some form of publishing deal. Sure you would have... well consi

If I want to read something to escape from boring old life, I would read a Star Trek novel. Now that's escapist fiction. Some of it good, much of it bad, but it's a rose-colored, feel-good reality that takes me away from the pain of life.

This tough-but-fair reviewer apparently shares an e-mail address [google.com] with the fabulous novelist James Morris, widely hailed author of The Escapist. I'm sure this is merely a coincidence and not the result of someone so completely lame that he had to review his own book in order to get anyone to say something positive about it.

It's just a nomenclature problem.He said "...a hacker with a cold-blooded killing streak", but he meant "...a sysadmin with a cold-blooded killing streak", which is, of course, perfectly understandable and quite common.